Leadville became famous for its 1879 silver boom during the Wild West era.
The town began as a mining settlement called Oro City during the Colorado Gold Rush. After prospectors discovered rich silver deposits nearby, Leadville rapidly expanded and became one of the most important mining centers in the American West. Its population, businesses, and transportation links grew dramatically during the late 1870s and early 1880s.
The boom attracted miners, merchants, investors, laborers, and notable residents. Wealth from the mines helped make Leadville a major Colorado city, while the difficult mountain environment made mining and transportation challenging. Famous figures associated with the town include Horace Tabor and his wife, Baby Doe Tabor.
Leadville is sometimes confused with Aspen, another Colorado mining town that also benefited from silver. The two towns were separate communities, although both were shaped by the nineteenth-century silver industry. When silver prices collapsed after the repeal of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act in 1893, Leadville suffered a severe economic downturn, but it remained an important historic mining center.